Code Brown

Well, I survived my first week as an intern and better yet... Im pretty sure my patients survived too.

My first day was on the Cardiology service at the Veterans Hospital (a mandatory elective lasting one month). Usually this is a service managed by the cardiology fellows (doctors who finished residency in general medicine and are continuing their training to be a cardiologist). Unfortunately, for my first day the fellows did not come in so it was up to me and the new 2nd year resident to manage all the patients on the service. This was quite the challenge since I could barely log on to the computer nevermind write notes and find my way around the hospital. At least I was not alone... the entire hospital was full of interns, residents, and fellows who are new or on new rotations... which makes for good comraderie as well as a steady undercurrent of chaos.

Apparently the attendings (the senior doctors finished with training, aka our bosses) call July 1st "ninja day" because the interns are the silent killers... ha ha. As an intern I quickly realized that there is no shortage of jokes at our expense.

My attending is quite the character. He is a very short, Jewish guy, bald, and old enough to be my grandfather with an "old school" style of teaching which involves calling everyone an idiot and making drastic gestures to emphasize his point. He delivered a very entertaining lecture on Code Blue yesterday... aka cardiac arrest. The hospital uses different codes for different emergencies to use over the loud speakers so the staff can respond appropriately. Other colors include White (pediatric emergency) Yellow (missing pt) etc. It was during his lecture that I learned about "code brown." Apparently it is when an intern responds to a cardiac arrest and forgets what to do.... use your imagination to figure out what the brown refers to.